QUOTES FROM TODAY'S PRESS CONFERENCE
LSU COACH LES MILES
THE MODERATOR: We'll begin and ask Coach Miles just for some opening comments on his team's preparation for the game during the week and then we'll take questions. Coach?
COACH MILES: I enjoyed the team's resiliency coming off a difficult game. It seemed that the speed and the quickness of the practice week came together very quickly.
I like their preparation. Health appears to me is coming back to significant members of our team. I think Glenn Dorsey is probably fresher than he's been in quite some time. I think our defense, Darry Beckwith who was limited a week ago certainly will be ready to play. And it's kind of nice to see those guys ready to play.
Matt Flynn, just to let you know, took snaps and threw balls during the week of practice, and really took part much more on Thursday. That will be a game time decision. We'll take him to the field and warm him up and see how that feels. But you know, if, in fact, he is ready to play, we'll play him. If he's not, he'll watch. But I would expect that he may well play.
Q. What worries you most about Tennessee?
COACH MILES: Well, I know that they have improved as the season went on; that they found ways to win. You know, they are just a very competitive football team and they have all of the, you know, all three phases are quality, offense, defense and special teams. They have a nice return game. They have a tremendous defensive front, very physical front, and an offense that has balance, both run and pass.
So, it will be a formidable challenge.
Q. You said Matt Flynn is going to be a game time decision. Is the decision is to play No. 15, are you going to need a big game out of him? The last time he was on the turf at the Georgia Dome, he was the Peach Bowl MVP.
COACH MILES: I didn't really hear your question, but I'm going to kind of go with it like I did.
I expect that Matt, if he plays, will play extremely well. He's a veteran now. He's much different than the guy that played, you know, last time we were here. He's much more like the quarterback that played in the Peach Bowl, and I would expect that he would have every opportunity at success. We wouldn't put him out there if he didn't.
Q. Obviously your kids hear things. What have you told your team about the Michigan talk?
COACH MILES: I just told them, honestly through reports, I have no firsthand knowledge in any way that they have, you know, contacted certainly they have not contacted me and I have not contacted them.
The reports are that they have asked for permission to speak to me. I'll allow that after this game, but I'm the coach and I'm preparing to play this game fully and there will be no distractions.
Q. Were you worried at the start of the week that your team might not be resilient and bounce back, or once you were on the practice field you could kind of see that it came back pretty quick?
COACH MILES: You know, any time you run hard at victory and you expel and expend every piece of energy that you have, it doesn't come back just, you know, overnight. It takes some time.
And you know, as the week wore on, you know, certainly Monday was, you know, a very tight day, as preparation ensued on Tuesday and Wednesday, the bounce in their step and the feel was certainly there.
We have a veteran team, 25 seniors; the winningest senior class in school history. If you looked at the percentage of victories that the senior class has had and compare them with any other five year senior class, they are ranked third. USC senior class, fifth year, and the Boise fifth year senior class, and then LSU; it's the winningest senior class in SEC history.
These guys have been through some difficult outcomes and have responded, and I would expect that again this Saturday.
Q. Does it flatter you that your alma mater has asked permission to talk to you?
COACH MILES: I have to be real honest with you. I will only be flattered by the opportunity to play well and perform as this team is capable this Saturday. I'm not giving much thought to anything else.
Q. As far as Matt goes, I understand that Brett Favre was quoted as saying that a shoulder injury is something where with some injections, you can play through the pain and through the difficulty. Matt has seemingly responded to that before; is that the kind of game time decision you'll be making?
COACH MILES: No. I think it will be the strength and the feel of the ball in his hand, period. If he's throwing the ball well and without hitch and comfort is there, I think that we don't want a tender quarterback that's trying to get a ball there. We want to be able to sling it. We want to be able to have some strength on the throw, and if he has that, we'll go forward.
Q. Earlier in the year, your defense made the opponent earn basically everything that they got. As the year has gone on, you've been given up more and more plays over the course of maybe the last five, six games. Can you talk about what the product of that is, and is that a concern going into this game?
COACH MILES: I think over the length of the season, in different games, different units perform extremely well and different units struggle. I think if you look at those defenses that played against Arkansas when Arkansas was extremely healthy, had a great receiver in both Felix Jones and McFadden, I think that you'll find that those defenses gave up a lot of yards because of how successful Arkansas was.
I think our team, you know, goes through both the ebb and flow of any championship season. I think our defense has had that, as well.
Am I concerned? Absolutely. But I think as I look to this game, it appears to me that we're becoming healthier, more like a defense that has started the season. And I would like to think that that's how they will perform.
Q. With all of the speculation and all of the rampant rumors flying around, we talk about how it affects the kids perhaps. How has it affected you with everything going on?
COACH MILES: It's not affected me. And I can tell you, I've probably spent 15 minutes allowing a personal thought along those lines. And I've worked toward this championship fully. It will affect me if it affects this team; that's a fact. But I promise you, I'm in early, and I work late, and the game plan is as good as it can be and my coaches have done the game. So it's not had any effect on me.
Q. Do you like the current overtime format, and do you think it could be too physically demanding?
COACH MILES: You know, I'm just telling you, it's not 60 minutes. You can't play a second game, you know what I mean?
So any time you go to a format, something has to give. There's some piece of the football game that's left on the drawing board because it's all got to be decided in a short amount of time. I certainly think it's imperfect. I don't know that I have the answer. I think it's perfectly deciding ends of games and I don't know that I'm complaining.
It's that way for every team. I think it's fair, certainly. But I don't know that in a sure field, in limited time frame, if that's a real if it's representative of a victory.
But, again, I don't have any answers. I can only tell you that that's a system we have, and I want to perform in that system. I want that system to work for our team.
So if there's a better system, I haven't given a lot of thought to it to be honest.
Q. Seeing the way this season has played out in terms of the benefits of an off week, and seeing what you have endured and seeing what Tennessee has endured over the past week, do you feel like it would behoove this conference to possibly push this game and give both teams an off week in preparation for such a great game as it is?
COACH MILES: I have always felt that off weeks give an opportunity to get health back and return your team to the style team that it's been.
If you're healthy, certainly you don't want the off week and want to keep the rhythm of the season going. But if you have a guy with a nicked ankle or a bruise here or that's slow in some way, you would like to return that team to speed.
I think that that's part of the enjoyment and the wonderful feel of football, because it is it takes time to endure injury and it takes a season of that style of overcoming adversity and creating games like this.
Yeah, I'd like to have an extra week, but I'd like to play in this game whenever they have it.
Q. Would you talk about getting No. 90 back and maybe the pent up energy that you're expecting from a culmination of setting on the sidelines for a season; are you expecting it to explode?
COACH MILES: I hope he relaxes to be honest with you. He's a high strung guy and loves to play, and he's very talented, but I want him to get into the flow of the game in a nice, easy, comfortable fashion. He may go out there and, you know, play the first seven plays, and that could be the end of the day. I want him to understand that we are going to go a long distance here, and we would like to have him the first quarter and right on through.
But yeah, we are looking forward to his run in the game. He is one of the reasons that we will have an extra healthy body at the end to tackle or spell some of our guys.
Q. I've asked you about this a couple of times during the week and just trying to get a sense of each day how it progresses. The guys on the team, the senior class, doesn't have a conference championship of their own that they play significant minutes. Are you seeing that each passing day more of a realization on their part what they are playing for tomorrow?
COACH MILES: Yeah, I think we all understand that as you sit down the beginning of each season and you look at the goals that a team puts down for themselves, there's how you play and how you perform and what you expect.
And then you have outcomes. I think this team understands very comfortably that the SEC Championship, that that outcome in that game is why you work so hard in the summer, why you perform admirably through the year, and now it's right in front of them. I think they understand. I think the leadership of our football team certainly does.
Q. Your favorite subject. Trindon Holliday, you didn't mention
COACH MILES: Trindon will play. He's had a good week of practice and he'll be pretty fresh when it comes to game time.
Q. Perrilloux being talented but young, is he the kind of guy that could make both sidelines nervous if he plays a lot?
COACH MILES: Well, I can only tell you that if he takes snaps for us, he'll be doing the things that he can do, both run and pass. And so I'm certainly not going to be anything but anticipating him doing the things that he's capable of doing. As long as he doesn't try to do too much, I suspect that he'll do fine for us, if Matt's not playing.
Q. Tennessee's success on offense, especially the second half of the year, do you attribute that more to the people that are playing, their talent, or the scheme that they are able to use?
COACH MILES: Well, they have a very fine running back in Foster, a quarterback that, you know, gets it out of his hands very accurate, good receiving core, Lucas Taylor and the like.
It's got great balance. Any offense that has the ability to run the football and throw it, you know, that's the kind of offense that's difficult to defend. And I think that offenses have the opportunity to come together, you know, later in the year and maybe that's the case here. But they seem to be hitting on all cylinders there.
Q. Over the last few games, there have been plenty of conjured up circumstances, a lot much controversy going on right now. Talk about the ability of your team to be able to push some of that stuff to the back burner and the maturity level that you've exhibited.
COACH MILES: Well, I think they all understand what they are playing for. I think the ability to avoid distraction, keep your eye on that goal and the task is based in many ways what you put in to earning the position that you're in, and they have worked awfully hard to be where they are at.
For them to be distracted or, you know, detoured in their approach, I just don't see that happening with this group. I think they know why they came to LSU. They want to play in games like this. They want to play in championships. This is going to be a very competitive game and I think we'll give a great effort.
Q. If West Virginia and Missouri would both lose, do you think you would have a strong case to be in the National Championship game?
COACH MILES: Well, I think beyond this game, you could there's a lot of things to be said. I really want to look first and foremost to playing well and finishing this season and winning the conference championship. That's really the focus.
Beyond that game, I might be able to comment a little bit further.
Q. You said you would talk to Michigan after the game; is there a meeting that's been set up?
COACH MILES: No.
Q. Let me paint a picture for you. You win the SEC Championship; you go to the Sugar Bowl; you win the Sugar Bowl Championship. Do you even talk to Michigan after that?
COACH MILES: You're talking about a scenario that I'm not entertaining. This is about this team. I promise you, if you think that it's a conversation that I can have with my wife, I can't, okay. It's not something I talk about. It would be certainly a distraction to me and be cheating my team. I wouldn't do it. So we'll get beyond this game and we'll see what happens.
Q. When you have so many talented defenders on that side of the football, can you talk about how your unit would have been without what Craig has done for you this year?
COACH MILES: He has called our defenses; he's led our team; he's made any number of plays in the open field, has a tremendous break on the ball and can judge direction he has soft hands. If the ball goes up in the air, he'll have a great opportunity of intercepting it. And he makes play after play in the open field with really little support at times. So he's a leader. He's got to be the finest safety in the country, and we're he's meant a lot to this defense. If he's not on the field, you know, it's a concern to all of us.
TENNESSEE COACH PHILLIP FULMER
THE MODERATOR: If we could have opening comments on your team's preparation for the game this week and then we'll take questions.
COACH FULMER: Good afternoon. Our preparations have gone well. We a few weeks pack started practicing on Sunday, and obviously after 119 snaps against Kentucky that our defense played, Sunday was, needless to say, a very light workout. Took Monday off with the team, and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday were exceptional preparation days for us. Although not quite as extended as we had in the past, although Tuesday was as physical in some areas, but Wednesday and Thursday we backed off a little bit.
Understanding the challenges we have against a very fine LSU team, but I do like the way that our team has approached particularly these last five weeks to get themselves to this position.
So we're pleased to be here and look forward to a great football game, and an opportunity to play against an outstanding LSU team in what I think is the finest venue out there in college football short of the National Championship game, I would say.
Q. Did you look at a lot of LSU game film, with Flynn as quarterback, it's iffy for them this week, later in the year he didn't play much but earlier in the year he did.
COACH FULMER: Yeah, we've looked at both quarterbacks. Flynn is a very capable quarterback as a runner, as well, Perrilloux is a little bit faster, but both of them have the same kind of qualities. It wasn't necessarily that it was going to be entirely different regardless of which quarterback played.
You know, a guy is a starter for a reason, you know, and I'm sure he's going to play if he can. But that's not my concern. My concern is our preparation and our focus and worrying about things that we need to do to win the football game.
Q. A lot has been made of LSU and distractions, in your experience are distractions overblown in terms of the effect they have over young men, and how many times can distractions that the public and media don't see be worse, with a girlfriend or family problem or something like that?
COACH FULMER: Well, there's always those things. That's absolutely the case. I mean, they have all got personal lives going on. I had a young man come in and see me yesterday that his godfather is deathly ill and he is trying to make a decision, what do I do. We had a long personal and I guess somewhat spiritual talk about all that. So there's all these things going on that you manage when you have that many young men.
Again, my focus has been on our football team, and my you know, anything that we can do to help us win; we had a similar kind of situation with Coach Cutcliffe taken the Old Miss job when we were here in '98. He was tremendously focused on this game, and then, you know, left and we went on and won the National Championship.
So the distractions are what you make of them. I'm sure Coach Miles has handled it the very best he can, as well as his team. Sometimes when you get upset or disappointed at end of the season, that's hard to bounce back from. He's much better qualified to answer how his team is than I am.
Q. What's the likelihood that we'll see Montario tomorrow, is there any update on his situation and how comfortable are you with Lennon Creer?
COACH FULMER: You asked me that yesterday. Montario is better today or better yesterday than in four months of practice or his little workout that he had than he was. As we said Sunday, I didn't think he had any chance of playing; on Tuesday they gave us a little bit of hope; Wednesday he was much better.
So we're hopeful that if needed, he would be able to be available. That's our backup tailback, if anybody doesn't know who he is.
I'm very comfortable with Lennon Creer. We've played Lennon all season long, not as much as we would maybe have liked to at different times, but that's because Montario Montario and Montario Foster had done so well.
So I think Lennon will handle himself extremely well when he gets the opportunity if well not if; we're going to play both of them in the game.
Q. The comparisons are similar drawing to the last two games your team has played in and the last two games and LSU has played. Did your team come out the better for the two struggles the last two Saturdays, and tell us how they did.
COACH FULMER: I would think, you know, our experience this year has been has been one of a youthful, growing football team as we've gone along. We've had two very convincing, solid wins and that was Georgia and Arkansas. From start to finish, we played extremely well in the ballgame.
We've had some exciting I mean, I could have done without the drama; to have a 21 point lead against South Carolina and lose it and have to play overtime to win; and this last game, 31 to 14, with, what, ten minutes to go in the game and we miss a couple passes, miss a couple interceptions, and all of a sudden we are playing over time again.
That's just kind of where we are as a football team with our youthfulness right now in spots, and that's something we've addressed. We obviously cannot do that against a team like LSU. We're going to have to play good from start to finish.
Q. When your team won the National Championship in '98, you were undefeated. Since then, there have been two SEC teams win National Championships with one loss, and an SEC Champion that was undefeated not get a chance to play for the National Championship. Given the system you're working under, is it important to be good at the right time, or is that as important as being good, period?
COACH FULMER: Well, to even get to that point, you've got to be good, period. You're not going to have one loss coming through this league or be undefeated like Auburn was a couple years when we played them in the Championship and not be good.
But the system is such that if you're going to have a loss, you'd better have it early almost if you're going to going to the National Championship game.
Now this crazy year, who knows what's going to happen over the weekend and everything. There's a lot of discussion out there as to what might happen at the end of the weekend. Again, we have a good personality trait I think in taking care of what we can control and worry about and not worry about things. We're not in that mix unfortunately; but not my concern.
Q. I was wondering if you would discuss how difficult it is to keep the kids on an emotional even keel all the way through the season and what are those difficulties, peaks and valleys during the season that you have to overcome?
COACH FULMER: Well, I don't know how many of you have teenage children, 18 to 22 year old is an interesting time. And we have a number of young players that are helping us. And between our seniors, and the character of our young players, we have held it in place pretty good. Our seniors and juniors, and they at least, in our case, they listen to us.
There's all kinds of outside influences, and I'm sure there's some along the way that even amongst the team, you know, that had their doubts and things. But the majority of the football team stayed the course, and I know, as we said, just about the personal issues that come up; they need the stability. They need to have people that they feel good about: The assistant coaches, the head coach; the people that they can trust.
I think week in and week out, whether we had a close win or a tough loss, our guys came back, and we went back to work to try to get better. It's tough holding it all together with all the emotions that are out there, and in this day and age, with the media scrutiny and all the other questions that can be created around them.
But we did I think probably one of our finest jobs this year of keeping it together, pulling it together, playing hard every week.
Q. In getting ready for LSU, what's your biggest concern about facing them, or what worries you the most?
COACH FULMER: I told our team on Sunday, it's kind of like the dog that chases the car, the young dog that chases the car; and you chase the car and you chase the car, and finally you've caught the car, and what the heck are you going to do with it, you know. That's the way this team is. We've been fighting to get to this point all year long, and now we've got ourselves in the Championship Game, and how are we going to play.
LSU is a really, really fine football team. There's not you can't look at them and say they have an obvious weakness. They are balanced on offense, run and pass. They are dominant on defense. They have got the No. 1 punter, the No. 1 kicker, the No. 3 kickoff return guy in the conference.
So there's just no area that you can say, well, we can load up on this and not be so concerned about them doing this. It's just not the case. We'll have to play really well. Our offense will have to help our defense, a lot in the ballgame. Our defense will have to hold its own certainly in the ballgame, not give up big plays and then try to make something happen in the kicking game.
Our guys have worked hard to get ready for this football game.
Q. Erik Ainge had a tendency to get really hyped up for big games, has he grown out of that? And the player with the family illness, will that player play?
COACH FULMER: Yeah, we won't have anybody play that weren't expecting to play.
They say the best thing about freshmen is they get to be sophomores, you know, and Erik was a freshman, although we won the division, you know, played well, he played within himself but he had the tendency had a tough sophomore year.
I don't know of anybody in the league honestly that has done a better job in the last two years than Erik Ainge has from a consistency standpoint, from being leaned on a lot with their offense and their protections and so on; and now this year even putting more burden on him running a no huddle type of offense when there's even more decision making process that's going on as the game goes along.
So he's done a tremendous job, and he's not going to be perfect, but he's had one heck of a career here, and I know he wants to really finish it out here in the Dome against an LSU team that's, you know, one of the best in college football.
Q. You said it was tough to bounce back off an upset or something like that. How much of an advantage is it for Tennessee coming into this game on an upswing, and a chance to complete, you know, a very successful season, as opposed to, well, let's just say, coming into the game on a somewhat different note?
COACH FULMER: Well, I mean, the guys, we're playing for the Southeastern Conference Championship, both schools are, and that's something that doesn't happen every day. At the beginning of the year, I'm certain everybody's goal was to, you know, play is to win your division and then play for the conference championship.
Obviously LSU for a period of time now on two different occasions are being ranked No. 1 in the country. That's a tremendous compliment to the program. Also quite a burden to have to go out and play every game perfect to try to stay No. 1. I've been there, done that. I know how tough that can be; the year in '01 when we got upset by LSU getting ready to play Miami for the National Championship. Every Saturday, you'd better be ready to play the best you can, regardless in this league who you're playing.
You know, when it's 31 14 against Kentucky and we go on and finish the game, I'd say maybe. But we had to fight so hard, and that's our thing this year, I guess. Although I said we had complete games against Arkansas and Georgia. You know, until we get past that, you know, and this needs to be the weekend that we do that; I don't know if we've got any advantage going in necessarily.
After the ball is snapped, kicked off and stuff, outside perimeter stuff, that really doesn't matter too much to be honest with you.
Q. You talked about LSU's balance on offense, and they really do spread the ball on, not just the number of receivers, but they don't have one true running back in Baton Rouge. Does that give your staff any more to prepare for, and is it something that you would rather see a single type back carry the ball?
COACH FULMER: No, I think it helps them. I think it helps them a lot to be able to mix up the backs and the styles that they have had. When we've had our best teams, that's what we've been able to do is to have the back that kind of can pound on you, and then you slip in a Charlie Garner or somebody like that, that can all of a sudden break something big for you.
I think they have done a great job with their offense and they are big and physical up front with their linemen and tight ends, and then the skill people outside, and they are just about, statistically, just about balanced, you know. So kind of which poison do you want, sort of.
Q. Go back to October 20 for a minute after the Alabama game. You're 4 3, pretty low point in the season. I want you to go back to this talking about keeping it together. Is that a defining moment for this team, and how about what you did as a staff, as a head coach and a team?
COACH FULMER: On a number of occasions, during the course of the year, we had played really good football. Cal, who is although they didn't finish the season, they were a really fine football team. You go back and you grade that film and you really look at it from a coaching standpoint, you know, even with the touchdown we gave up on, which there were two clips on, on the punt return, and the fumble, you know, that they ended up with a score on, earlier in the fourth quarter we had the ball down with eight points ready to go have a chance. So it wasn't like we were terrible.
Florida, the third quarter, I think maybe seven points down, eight points down in Florida, we got the ball, got momentum, got a big stop and we're getting ready to go and then we had the turnover that ended up being a score and the dam kind of broke.
So it wasn't like we weren't capable or it was an effort thing or whatever. It was just our inconsistency. And then I felt like we put it all together when we played Georgia, and then we're going to get going.
Alabama was absolutely the most frustrating game of the year for us, because either side of the ball neither side of the ball did we play well and they played real well. So we had one of those Sunday night player meetings, you know, as a team, and we've had one earlier in the day as a staff. Hey, we are a good football team and we can do this, but we've got to stop giving people help, you know, with punt returns or kickoff field position or turnovers. You know, you play ten great defensive snaps and then you give up a play for 40 yards or a score.
And when they listened or whatever and we finally got to that point where we stopped doing that, we started winning football games. I said we've got 35 days to win five games and we're going to do this. And the kids did a great job. It wasn't always perfect, but we were much better about not helping people; we call them gimmies. We're not going to have any gimmies in the ballgame and we've done much better with that.